Working in the Fantasy Factory

Abstract

Using ethnographic data, this article argues that interactions between strippers and their customers are vehicles for the conveyance of attention and the enactment of masculine power in addition to being locations of erotic entertainment. Rejecting the anti-sex-work feminist argument that erotic entertainment serves men by objectifying women, this article argues instead that interactions in strip clubs rely on dancers as interactive subjects rather than as sex objects. Using Goffman's notion of “impression management” and Hochschild's notion of “emotional labor,” this article presents an analysis of strip club encounters that fits into a feminist-interactionist framework.

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